On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions. From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
This series was created by Alain Chamot (1971-2020).
Monday will be the start of Paris After Dark! If you haven’t already sent in your Paris pics, please do send them in. We already have enough pics to stay in Paris After Dark for a few more days the following week, maybe we can stay the whole week. ~WaterGirl
On the Road: Week of August 10 (5 am)
Albatrossity – Summer Beauty in Flyover Country
Auntie Anne – Chateau de Rochecotte
🐾BillinGlendaleCA – Sunrise in the Alabama Hills
Benw – Suffolk County, NY
tomtofa – Now and ThenOn the Road After Dark: Week of August 10 (10pm)
arrieve – A Few Days in Paris
ET – Paris
lashonharangue – Paris, France – Pont Neuf and Pont Notre-Dame
frosty – Paris
ljt – Notre-Dame de ParisAnd now, on to The Apple Isle, with Jack Canuck. We have a treat today as we close out out this week with an amazing array of photos – animals, flowers, water, trees, mountains, and an uncurling fern frond that I never could have identified on my own. Beauty truly does come in many different forms, doesn’t it?
Jack Canuck
Tasmania (aka the Apple Isle) is one of my favourite places in the world. It’s about the size of Ireland, with a population of around 500,000 (about 40% of which are in the capital, Hobart). Hobart itself is a lovely small city, the second oldest in Australia (founded in 1803), that reminds me very much of St John, New Brunswick in its feel. I’ve been down there four or five times since I moved to Melbourne in 2006, and I can’t wait to go again. The photos I’ve picked here are mostly from the high country in central Tasmania, in the Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park – an absolutely gorgeous area where it actually gets into real alpine terrain (snow! in the summer!). Due to the pandemic I sadly won’t be getting back to Tasmania in the foreseeable future, but I will the first chance I get.
This was taken at the top of a geographical feature called The Nut, in the town of Stanley on the north coast. The Nut is actually the remnant of an ancient volcanic plug, which is now a steep bluff on the edge of town. It’s not very large, but we took a couple of hours to climb up and wander around. I liked the contrast of the cloudy skies with the brush and lone tree. Black and white, of course, because hey, it’s me, but that’s what this shot called for.
I don’t always use black and white, and this shot of an uncurling fern frond is an excellent example. I don’t remember where exactly this was other than somewhere near the wilder, less-populated west coast of the island, on a short hike up to a waterfall. I do love the rich green, which was so prevalent in that cool and wet region.
This is a brush-tailed possum, one of the more common marsupials in Australia. He (she?) was hanging out in this tree, and we spotted him as we walked from Hobart city centre up to the Cascade Brewery four or five kilometres away up in the hills. The critter wasn’t too forthcoming for his portrait, but considering the species is nocturnal I felt pretty luck that he was out and about at all.
Cradle Mountain is one of the best-known sights in Tasmania, and it is indeed a lovely part of the world. The hike up the mountain (and it is a hike, though there are some pretty scrambly climby bits) takes several hours, starting from Dove Lake at the base. Once you get to the top there are some spectacular views, which I sadly didn’t really get any good shots of (I blame the lack of a good wide angle lens). This shot of a forest raven, the largest Australian corvid, gives a sense of the landscape though. This was taken at the summit of Cradle Mountain; the bird obligingly posed for me on a picturesque rock.
This was taken on that same hike up Cradle Mountain, albeit at a lower elevation on the track down. It was a very wet part of the trail where (if I recall correctly) you walked on a boardwalk kind of set up to preserve the vegetation. I have no idea what these plants are, but I thought they made a nice shot.
Cradle Mountain is at the north end of Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park, but I actually prefer the lake end at the south, where I took the rest of these photos. This is Mount Olympus, with Cynthia Bay on Lake St Clair in the foreground. I shot this a few hundred meters from our campground, right around sunset. The peak is a bit over 1400 meters high, and gets well above the tree line at that latitude. There are apparently some nice trails up that way, but I’ve never had a chance to explore them.
Another one from the same evening, more of a detail of the trees and mountain – you can spot the same section in the wider colour shot. I love the stark white of the gum trees against the other vegetation and the mountain behind.
To finish off, another evening shot, this time of Mount Ida. This was also taken from Lake St Clair near the campground, during a late afternoon ramble along the lake shore. I haven’t been back to this spot for years now, but hopefully we will soon – my son’s old enough now (at ten) that we can do some pretty strenuous hikes, and we’ve managed to get him thoroughly hooked on the activity. Getting back to Tasmania is something to keep in mind as a future reward when (it will be when, right?) we get through the current chaos and disruption.
OzarkHillbilly
Love that detail of the trees and mountain pic.
On the subject of children hiking, my parents did a lot of backpacking and as soon as us kids could keep up, off we went. On one trip up in the mountains (I forget which ones) they had my 4 y/o little brother along (even had a small pack with a few things in it just so he could feel like he was carrying his share). They were setting up camp at some lake when a panting fellow hiker arrived.
In between breaths he managed to get out, “There’s… that… son of a bitch.”
My folks were a bit taken aback by this.
He explained: “All the way up this Gawd damned mountian I have been following his little footprints. I kept telling myself, ‘If that little SOB can make it, so can I.”
SiubhanDuinne
@OzarkHillbilly:
LOL, what a great story!
Jack Canuck, your photos are wonderful. I particularly like the uncurling fern and the white flowers. And the forest raven — that’s a wonderful shot! Thanks for sharing Tasmania with us.
(ETA raven comment)
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: That reminds me of when I was able to run and participated in a number of 5k’s. I was running in the “Jingle Bell Run” with Raven. It was cool because everyone pinned a bell on and the sound was really neat. When I was nearing the finish a woman plodded past me and said “no damn Cocker Spaniel is going to beat me in this race”!
JPL
The pictures are lovely and love all the mountain views.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: That’s the spirit!
mrmoshpotato
Contemplative bird. Great pictures. Thanks for sharing Jack Canuck.
And of course – obligatory
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Nice – the Countess and I have taken a chance, and have booked flights (we’re burning about 350K miles on AA) and hotel for next June to go Oz, including a number of days in Tasmania to attend Dark Mofo in Hobart.
Any art and music festival involving a Solstice nude swim and upside down crosses all over town to agitate the Christers is a good thing…
HinTN
@OzarkHillbilly: That story made my morning. Thank you!!! And thank you, Jack Canuck, for taking us to Tasmania.
tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat)
Thank you for sharing! As a foreigner here in Japan, I am friends with another foreigner who happens to be from Tasmania. It’s cool to see what kind of place she comes from. Beautiful photos!
debbie
Lovely photos, esp. the last two. Even Australia’s possums are cuter than ours!
Gin & Tonic
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I’m thinking a nude swim in mid-winter in Tasmania will be, um, brisk.
Albatrossity
Beautiful! I so wanted to visit Tasmania when I was in Melbourne many years ago, but time would not allow it. I still hope to get there someday, and these pictures strengthened that hope!
ljt
Australia and New Zealand are at the top of my travel bucket list–I’m trying to believe I will get there someday! Thank you for these beautiful images. I especially like the fern and the flowers.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Gin & Tonic:
The shrinkage will be universal.
Jack Canuck
Glad you like them, folks. If you have the chance to go there, take it, it really is a beautiful place.
I haven’t been to Dark MoFo, but one of these years hopefully. Take your warm clothes for Hobart in winter though, it gets pretty damn chilly down there!
KSinMA
Beautiful photos. Thanks!
MazeDancer
What great photos!
arrieve
Wonderful photos! I’d love to go back to Australia and if travel ever becomes a reasonable thing to do again, will definitely include Tasmania on the itinerary.
The curled up fern is my favorite. I just love those green details.
Sloane Ranger
Thanks for these. What a beautiful place! I’m booked to spend Christmas 2021 in New Zealand and I want to spend New Year in Sydney although I haven’t booked that yet. It seems ridiculous to travel halfway across the world to spend just a couple of weeks there so I might try for a further week in Tassie.
Auntie Anne
Those are wonderful pictures! Another place going on my list . . . if things ever return to semi-normal.
Steve from Mendocino
Nice pictures. Would love to see more.
J R in WV
Great stuff, thanks!!!
Esp like the flowers on the bog…
Mike G
Tassie is a great place to drive around apart from the famous highlights like Hobart and Cradle Mountain. I spent several days doing a big loop from Hobart across to the west coast at Strahan (has a 20-mile-long beach, I was the only person on it), up to the north coast, over to Launceston and back to Hobart via Port Arthur.
Spinoza Is My Co-pilot
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: My wife and I attended Dark MOFO last year. A good friend here in Phoenix was invited with other members of one of his underground music acts to perform there (on the solstice, as it happened) — even though this particular act (Marshstepper) hadn’t performed together in a couple years — so we decided to “follow the band” across the world and check out the festival.
It was wonderful beyond any expectations, by leaps and bounds better overall than any music and art festival I’ve attended anywhere (including the fantastic Primavera in Barcelona). We spent several weeks there (staying at a small downtown Hobart hotel) and travelled around a bit throughout that eastern side of the island, along with attending a number of Dark MOFO concerts and art exhibits/installations.
I run out of superlatives trying to describe this incredibly beautiful island — with some of the cleanest air and water I’ve experienced anywhere, including the high Sierras in CA — and the many wonderful people we met there, and just how mindblowing the festival itself was (with much of the local populace of all ages of Hobart really getting into it, too).
Dark MOFO was, no surprise, sadly cancelled this past June, and I’ve read that the wealthy Tasmanian philanthropist behind the fest (David Walsh) is not sure how or if it will be done going into the future, but I sure hope it is. If you are able to go, you will not be disappointed — it was one of the very best places I’ve visited/experiences I’ve had in my 60-some year life (and my wife of 40+ years feels the same).